


the scream of life

by orphan_account



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Coming back to life, Fire, Heaven, Hospital, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Sad, a scream of life, coughmasks, heart monitors, kinda not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 11:29:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8204537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Killua remembers it vividly; how they talked by the campfire until the sun set and the fire went out. When the stars were their only light.





	

The stars shine brighter than the sun and Killua has a free pass to happiness. Like a golden ticket; only this one spreads farther than his eyes can see and glows a far more brilliant gold. It is blinding and Killua wonders if he’s knocking right at heaven's door but it’s opening too slowly and something just hurts so bad. 

It claws at him, eating the desire away from his eyes. Is this not what he wanted? Killua cannot argue with his brain (it told him to stop awhile back) and lets the firing pain engulf his chest in waves. The doors seem to be jammed but Killua will wait. There is no turning back.

Visions flash before his eyes like the bubbles under a groggy lake. Each tell a different tale: one colored a delicate rosepink, the others a myriad of colors. He can’t count them all and before he can do anything about it, they collide into a kaleidoscope. 

Golden eyes, smile, and laugh; Gon swims in the rippling myriad. But he isn’t there and Killua has to remind himself of that. It must be a memory, Killua thinks as he flies through his thoughts. It clicks in his head: Whale Island.

The place that Gon once called home. The smallest Island Killua had known, and still knows. The nicest people with the nicest smiles and the kindest hands and Killua just has to stop remembering. But he can’t; inevitable, he reasons with tears in his eyes. 

He wanted to rip out his heart because the memory of a blazing campfire and a starry sky and a golden smile that reached Gon’s eyes. His smiles were like a stranger giving you a flower and Killua collect each one and put them in a vase. While he could, at least.

Killua remembers it vividly; how they talked by the campfire until the sun set and the fire went out. When the stars were their only light. Adventuring was all it was; nothing more. Killua’s chest hurts again because he knows (he knows he knows fuck he knows way too much) that Gon’s smile was brighter than the sun and moon and asking to stay by Killua’s side did something to Killua that changed his life forever.

It had him thinking that maybe, possibly, Gon would be okay with Killua by his side. It also had him thinking far too protectively for the remainder of his life. He couldn’t lose his sun and moon smile.

Why can’t whatever the hell is clawing at him be a little gentler? Why could it not leave the memories out of his problems? The answer slams into him like a train and he almost kneels to the white ground in awe: he is letting go. Freeing the birds of his throughs and croaking frogs in his mind. He never knew that relief could feel this good. 

Is this why people look so peaceful as they die?

Floating is an option as the pain fades and a smile crosses Killua’s face. One reflects in his eyes but it is not his own; it makes Killua’s poor lips tremble and cracking voice disappear. Had he been here the whole time; looking up through the crumbled marble floor from the glowing world below? If only Killua let go earlier. The whipping wind slithers past his shoulders in puffs of white and Killua can only relish in how serene it is. 

He can get used to this. He still has his trusty eyes and trusty hands and trusty heart. What more can he want? 

To watch Gon live on with a smile that glows brighter than the marble floor and eyes that will and have always held a glow of love that Killua had and forever will dip into the lake of infinity just to drown in it again and again. Have these puddles always been there?

Killua does not wipe his eyes because he already knows. Gon is alive and breathing and roaming the land like he used to and not stuck up in the clouds like Killua.

Earth is really pretty, Killua thinks as the tears dry in streaks. Is it really where I lived? It was merely nothing more than a trash in his eyes; the cities filled to the tipping point with scrubby men in shabby beards who chewed tobacco like the world would collapse the next day. Killua was almost certain it would, but looking at it from above engulfs the world with an emerald shine.

“Can it be that we forget what is most important?” Killua wonders aloud. “To be alone is a personal choice; along with ignorance to what is true to our hearts.”

He wants to continue but can't. Gon, does he appreciate the world like Killua does now? He hopes so. If not, then the hue in Gon’s eyes wouldn't be so bright (they would look like Killua's) and Killua cannot have that. Not the dead look when Killua was very much alive, not the pale face that the doctors fretted over, and certainly not the icicle eyes that ripped people hearts from their chests. Killua cannot have that; no, not again. 

But not all hope has left Killua because that this very moment Gon looks to the sky with tears in his dotting his lashes and screams into the clouds. His face still splattered with ashes and hands frail and burnt, he cups them around his mouth. 

Killua has to hear. Killua has to hear. Killua has to hear. 

Has it only been maybe an hour since the fire? Since the smoke washed over the land in waves and only an hour since Killua’s death? Has Gon not been through enough torture to just fall from his shaking legs? Tip into Killua’s arms and weep about how cruel the current of fire was; how wrong the flames felt on his skin. To cry about how the flames took Killua before they could take himself. 

The scream shatters the clouds around Killua and he is left falling from a great height. He never knew the stars were so out of reach, but he reaches anyways. The hole in the marble grows smaller and smaller until Killua’s back plummets into the concrete.

That is when the heart monitors pick up speed and a strangled yell is wheezed into the cough mask. But everything is black; why is it so dark? He wonders as the pain in his back slithers into his fingers and he twitches them once for good measure. He can't hold back a breathy curse when a horrible pain sizzles through his veins. 

Is that shouting? Killua feels lost as the pain unfurls in bubbles along his skin. Unable to open his eyes he coughs. It begins soft but escalates until Killua is whistling with his mouth open. His breath speeds up. Where am I? What's happening? Why can't I see? Why does it hurt so bad?

Like the flip of a tv remote, Killua’s ears ignite with sound and his fluttering eye snaps open. He is still hacking into the mask but when his eyes threaten to close again and the heart monitor goes too fast, he looks to the doorway of the hospital room only to see Gon pressed against the glass with tears streaming down the same ashen cheeks. They fall into the same brunt hands and tumble into the same boots Gon always wore. 

Was that not a dream? The nurses assure Killua that he will be fine, but the pain does not leave. “Alleviate,” they say before giving him one of a thousand painkillers. At least that is what he hears before a serene numb sweeps over his body and has him breathing calmly with the cough mask casted to the side and the heart monitor at a steady and almost shaky beat. 

But then Gon enters like the great stallion he is and wastes no time in pulling the chair to Killua’s side and gripping his hand so hard Killua winces. Gon does not care and slams his head into Killua’s hand once and rests it there; his breath lulls Killua into another short nap.

“I thought I lost you.” is all Gon can manage. Killua blinks open his eye slowly as to not break the spell Gon has cast the moment he walked in. “You--I--you were dead, Killua. Dead. How--I saw it with my own. . .” Gon’s voice cracks and he rubs his forehead further into Killua’s hand. 

The room is silent for a beat until Killua releases his hand from Gon’s head; earning him a gasp as he tries to sit up. Tries, he does, but to no avail until someone later with heaving lungs and a shrill spike of pain in his skull. He can look at himself better now. His skin is burnt with crawling scabs and bursting blisters; reaching a hand to his face, he feels his entire cheek in the same state.

“ Am,” Killua begins to say but it comes out far too choked for his liking. It stays that way, so Killua continues on like the soldier he is. “Am I as pretty as Mona Lisa, yet?”

Maybe he really isn't over Gon yet. 

“You idiot,” Gon replies with a wobbling smile and tears falling free. He has far too many paintings in his room and Killua always makes fun of him for that. The art geek. “Mona Lisa will always be prettier than you.”

Killua bursts with joy inside.

“But I think the burns really suit me,” Killia jokingly informs, and asks, “do they not?” 

To which Gon hiccups through his tears and Killia smiles so big that his burn stings worse. Gon can't answer because Killua has that smile again; the dorky one that says “I'll be alright”. 

Maybe he came back to protect Gon, Killua wonders his reason for falling from the stars. His little guardian angel; the protector, the warrior, and the peacemaker. But truly, Killua does not recommend falling from cracking clouds. Hurts your back like a bitch.

**Author's Note:**

> This pisses me off so much. I can no longer ruin emotions it sucks. But hey I think I broke my toe writing this  
> oh and btw this shit writing, no, I did not reread it once I posted it. until like rn actually so hah have fun kiddies


End file.
